AOUAD m@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-11-06 published
Sheree M. LANTIN and Wai Michael
TEMPLE -- Match
By Judith TENENBAUM,
Saturday,▼
November▼ 5, 2005, Page M4
On their second date, as a birthday treat, Michael
TEMPLE ushered
Sheree LANTIN through Loblaws with an invitation to select her
favourite delicacies so he could demonstrate his culinary acumen.
Ms. LANTIN, a self-described foodie who has tried "almost every
restaurant in Toronto," recalls feeling skeptical as she flung
down the gauntlet, selecting exotics such as fiddleheads and
seafood. "He thinks he can cook?" she remembers thinking. "Let's
see."
With celerity, he whipped together a feast. "He didn't even flinch
-- [he] cooked five-star calibre," she says. "I was astonished."
A reticent Mr.
TEMPLE soon confessed to having once worked at
the celebrated French restaurant Auberge Gavroche.
The couple had met days earlier, during the May long weekend
of 2003, when a mutual friend extolled each to the other, and
suggested they meet at a birthday celebration in a downtown lounge.
One of four girls checking their jackets caught Mr.
TEMPLE's
eye.
"I thought I would be the luckiest guy if that indeed was Sheree,"
he says, and was rewarded 45 agonizing minutes later when the
two were introduced and his luck held. After a brief chat, Ms.
LANTIN drifted away, but made a lasting impression. "I realized
she was what I was looking for, and the other girls said, 'She
thinks you're a doll.' "
"He had a really good sense of humour -- that's what got me in
the beginning," Ms.
LANTIN says. "We spent hours talking and
just phased out the other people."
Mr. TEMPLE wasn't ready to have his dream date vanish into the
night and escorted her home. "I didn't know what to say or do,
so I offered him this huge bowl of chocolate ice cream," she
recalls with a laugh. The invitation enabled him to linger, and
reflect with every measured spoonful on the price we pay for
love: Mr. TEMPLE is lactose-intolerant.
The following weekend, Mr.
TEMPLE was in Tofino, British Columbia,
as a member of a friend's bridal party, and succumbed to the
pangs of separation. "He called me a million times a day and
then put the phone to the ocean. Really cheesy stuff," Ms.
LANTIN
says.
His Friends cautioned, "You're going to scare her off. She's
going to think you're psychotic." But, enthralled by the adulation
and miffed when it dwindled, "I told his Friends to stop giving
him advice," she laughs.
Their lives meshed quickly. Mr.
TEMPLE, now 38, with a B.A. from
Concordia University, is general manager of Temple and Temple
Tours Inc., a travel agency founded by his twin brothers in 1988
and geared to curriculum-based student travel. Until recently,
Ms. LANTIN, an honours science graduate from the University of
Toronto, worked across the street from him as an account manager
for BIMM
Communications.
(She now has a new career as a senior
account supervisor with
FCB
Direct.)
The duo was soon blissfully
spending seven days a week together.
Unfortunately, the couple entered a difficult phase in February,
2004, when Mr.
TEMPLE's father, Walter Michael
TEMPLE, was afflicted
with terminal cancer. At the same time, Ms.
LANTIN became ill
with a complex lower intestinal dysfunction that left her feverish,
in pain and barely able to stand. Exasperated after a series
of misdiagnoses, she researched her problem on the Internet,
and with the help of a friend, gained access to an appropriate
specialist. Just before her two operations corrected the problem,
Mr. TEMPLE's father died.
"That spring was one of the most trying periods of my life,"
says Mr. TEMPLE, who lifted his father's languishing spirits
when he declared his intention to marry Ms.
LANTIN.
As she recovered, his care and compassion underscored their bond.
"I knew he was absolutely the one during that most meaningful
and bittersweet time. His loyalty and kindness were there from
the beginning," she says.
Mr. TEMPLE's just-in-time plans for a Christmas engagement unravelled
when he ended up snowbound in Atlanta on December 23 -- the day
he planned to pick up the ring -- while returning from Costa
Rica with a tour group. He won a reprieve, however, when his
brother stepped into the breach, enabling Mr.
TEMPLE to insert
the ring box as scheduled into one of a pair of snow boots placed
in a Louis Vuitton bag. "We don't exactly remember what was said,"
Mr. TEMPLE says. "We were sobbing with tears of joy."
On August 13 on the deck overlooking the fairway of the Rosedale
Golf and Country Club, Dr. Antoine
AOUAD led the ceremony before
130 formally attired guests. "We thought of [the reception] as
a big dinner party," the bride says, and the revelry continued
at their King Street neighbour's after-party until daybreak.
As for the domestic peal of, "What's for dinner, honey?" Mrs.
TEMPLE, 33, admits, "Mike likes to cook dinner. He finds comfort
in it, and has fun at Dominion or St. Lawrence Market."
A... Names AO... Names Welcome Home
AOUAD m@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-11-26 published
Jessica Karie
RUYGROK and Daniel Donald John
DIFLORIO -- Match:
By Judith TENENBAUM,
Saturday,▲▼
November▲ 26, 2005, Page M5
Although Jessica
RUYGROK and Daniel
DIFLORIO had once played
together as two-year-olds at a Christmas party, they seemed destined
for close encounters and detached lives.
In their early teens, while they were at different high schools,
she trained on the running track that circled the field where
he played baseball. "I always noticed the catcher and he always
noticed who was running in the red top," she says. But those
encounters never went beyond furtive glances.
Two years later, they again came tantalizingly close at a Halloween
party, but their costumes kept them from recognizing each other.
Finally, a mutual friend introduced them in October, 1999, when
Ms. RUYGROK was in her last year of high school and Mr.
DIFLORIO
had started to study engineering at George Brown College.
"There was a mystery to him, and I wanted to get to know him
better," she says.
"We developed a strong Friendship, played pool, and I could talk
to her like one of the guys," Mr.
DIFLORIO says.
Intrigued, yet slightly taken aback by her sharp tongue and quick
wit, he pretended indifference.
On Valentine's Day, 2000, he offered a tepid card: "Be my Valentine,
be my friend." But a couple of days later she stopped by his
house to watch a movie. Suddenly, they kissed.
The reluctant romantics' feelings would manifest a few weeks
later. On a trip to Mexico with her graduating class, Ms.
RUYGROK
remembers, "I just felt empty, wishing he was here." Mr.
DIFLORIO,
meanwhile, admits that he "moped around and did absolutely nothing."
On her return, they saw each other daily. Then she left for a
massage therapy program at Sir Sandford Fleming College in Peterborough
and stayed there over two summers.
The long-distance relationship endured, however. "I believe it
was a test for us," Ms.
RUYGROK says. "The separation gave us
a chance to be more independent, and kept things in a nice balance."
The athletic couple fence, play badminton and hockey, and when
she returned to Toronto, they volunteered for the same team --
he on the ice as a coach, she on the bench as a trainer.
Ms. RUYGROK, who works at the Optimum Health Clinic in Mississauga,
had always wanted to have her own home before marriage. In January,
she was out of town at a hockey tournament when Mr.
DIFLORIO,
now a mechanical designer, called to say their offer on a handyman
special had been accepted. He felt it was time the co-owners
extended their partnership. "Driving from work, it just popped
into my head," he says. "I had the next day off, and went out
and bought a ring."
On February 11, as the couple skate-skied at Hardwood Hills,
the more experienced Ms.
RUYGROK set a brisk pace. She paused
for Mr. DIFLORIO. "He took his gloves off. I was impatient, saying,
'You don't have to take [them] off to have a drink.' Then he
started saying nice things to me, but I wasn't paying much attention,"
she says with a laugh. Then she froze as Mr.
DIFLORIO brandished
a diamond.
On Friday, August 26, at the Glenerin Inn, the bride entered
to the subtle strains of a Spanish guitar. Her gown of ivory
French silk, accented with antique lace, was a gift from her
aunt, Ottawa designer Janine
ADAMYK. On a canopied deck with
a forested ravine as backdrop, 90 guests watched as Dr. Antoine
AOUAD wed the couple. "[It was] very Jessica, very rustic," maid
of honour Conor
SNELSON says. "They are young -- both 24 -- [and]
have careers and a home, whereas most people our age aren't there
yet. They really knew what they wanted and went after it."
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AOUAD m@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-12-10 published
Maria Augusta
FAGAN and Michael Claude
ROGERS -- Match:
By Judith TENENBAUM,
Saturday,▲
December 10, 2005, Page M6
The sun always shines on Regatta Day in Saint John's, a municipal
holiday unique in North America because weather conditions determine
the date. In August, 1994, Maria
FAGAN and Michael
ROGERS were
among the passengers in a car returning from the regatta, where
Ms. FAGAN had competed. "We decided to go for a swim in a pond
just outside of Saint John's, but ended up getting into a very
bad car accident and never made it," he says.
The car wound up on its roof, the occupants sent to hospital,
and their distraught parents meeting -- unaware of the portent
-- for the first time.
That fall, Mr.
ROGERS recalls, their Friendship intensified "when
Maria asked me if I would be her date for graduation." She was
a year older and a grade ahead, but, she admits, "I had a big
crush on Mike."
The two were out for a drive couple of months later, and as she
turned left at a particular intersection, Mr.
ROGERS says, "I
decided it was time that I became more than just Maria's prom
date, and asked, 'Do you wanna try going out with me?' "
"I got butterflies in my stomach," she says. "It was very exciting."
Meanwhile, Ms.
FAGAN entered a psychology program at Memorial
University of Newfoundland. Still in high school, Mr.
ROGERS
joined her for evening study sessions at the university library,
making him a campus veteran by the time he enrolled the next
year to study physics.
Later, when she began a master's degree at the University of
Guelph, their two-year separation was inconsequential. "You have
to let the other person have freedom to grow and become whatever
it is they want," Mr.
ROGERS says. "In a lot of ways, we were
very lucky. We didn't have to try to make it work; the shoe fit."
In September, 2002, their academic and personal aspirations flourished
when both were accepted for postgraduate studies at the University
of Toronto -- he as a master's student en route to a physics
doctoral program and she as a PhD candidate in clinical child
psychology. Two years later, Mr.
ROGERS bought a ring. "I was
reminded a few times over the years that I wasn't much of a romantic,"
he laughs. To counter that, he stashed the ring for three months
until their visit home to Saint John's.
On Christmas Eve, as they drove to his parents' for dinner, they
arrived at the legendary intersection of a decade ago. One hand
on the wheel, he executed the same left turn, pulled out a ring
box, and echoing his teenaged self, made a more enduring request:
"So, do you wanna marry me?"
An intimate wedding of 30 was anticipated, but the couple were
delighted with the enthusiastic response of 100 Friends and family
from across North America.
On September 3, at the University of Toronto's Emmanuel College
Chapel,
Dr.
Antoine
AOUAD wed the couple. Afterwards, the assembly
walked across campus to a reception in the Hart House music room.
The bride describes their gift to their guests with true island
pride: "Mike's mother made little jars of partridgeberry jam
with the Newfoundland tartan on top."
The new Mrs.
ROGERS, 28, currently holds a Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship, and sees her
career as a researcher and clinical child psychologist as being
portable.
Mr. ROGERS, 27, has been featured in physics journals for his
pioneering research in the realm of buoyant plumes and vortex
rings. He explains that, while it's of great academic interest,
there are no practical applications to date. "I never got into
this for the money or a job," he says with a laugh. "She'll be
the moneymaker."
A... Names AO... Names Welcome Home
AOUAD m@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-05-20 published
Danielle Martin
BERRY and John Douglas
HARRISON -- Match:
By Judith TENENBAUM,
Page M4
The Fox Goes Free pub in Pickering inadvertently lived up to
its billing as a great place to meet when John
HARRISON, a student
working for the summer as a bartender, observed Danielle
BERRY,
a fellow student-cum-waitress, and did a double take. "I recognized
her from the University of Toronto, but we had never had a chance
to meet. I was immediately and totally enamoured with her," he
recalls.
At the time, both were students in the faculty of music. Ms.
BERRY,
in the education program, concentrated on piano and won the Lloyd
Bradshaw
Prize in choral conducting, while Mr.
HARRISON, in performance,
specialized in clarinet, earning scholarships in the Opera Orchestra.
"It's a very small faculty and strange we didn't cross paths,"
she says.
Back in the classroom, the symphonic Friendship that was initiated
at work soon had the ivories and woodwind in perfect harmony.
"We hit it off right away, became romantically involved because
we were such a good match and have been inseparable since 1996,"
Ms. BERRY, 31, says.
On graduation, the couple's careers would digress. The prospect
of a plethora of lengthy auditions preceding any performance
contract disillusioned Mr.
HARRISON and when a friend suggested
he cast his lot with
ING
Bank, a financial institution launching
in Canada, he changed direction and never looked back. Naysayers
may refute music as a basis for world finance, but Mr.
HARRISON
counters, "In music, creative and logical thinking are important,
and music has prepared me very well for what I am doing now."
Meanwhile, true to her discipline, Ms.
BERRY continued on to
the Glenn Gould School, earning various scholarships before beginning
to teach piano and musicianship in association with the Yamaha
Music School, while finding time to volunteer for the lunch ministry
at the St. Felix Centre. She acknowledges family influence, but
attributes her performance success to Mr.
HARRISON, 33. "He felt
I had it in me, and encouraged me in a way that I hadn't encountered
before. I don't think I would have taken that step if I hadn't
known John," she says.
Happily, the pair relish joint musical and artistic interests
while savouring Toronto's diverse dining scene, but frequently
find respite from the frenetic urban landscape by embracing the
outdoors at his fourth-generation family property near Minden.
When he was dispatched to the United Kingdom in October, 2002,
to assist in
ING's start-up, Ms.
BERRY joined him after honouring
her teaching commitments up to June, 2003.
"I knew that I would have a life with John when we were together,"
she affirms, since "we had the confidence to be apart."
Their two years in London were magical as they drank in the world-class
cultural scene and jaunted to the continent. A highlight was
their venture to the original 17th-century Fox Goes Free pub,
"which has special meaning for us," she says.
Just before their July, 2005, return to Toronto, she had begun
to ruminate on what seemed like a delinquent proposal, but on
a March mini-excursion to Greece the answer to her anxiety was
tucked away in Mr.
HARRISON's camera tote. As the sun set on
Santorini, the volcano slept, and the ocean glistened like their
future and the ring on her finger.
On May 6 at the Ontario Heritage Centre, a classical guitarist
performed as the couple recited vows before officiant Antoine
AOUAD. A meet, mix and dance cocktail reception followed.
"It seemed natural we would always be together," reflects Mrs.
BERRY
HARRISON, who advises others in long-term relationships: "Be
oblivious to outside pressure, know what your timing is, and
what you are comfortable doing."
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